Today has been a tough day for me. I'm not sure why, but I think it has to do with the transient nature of the expat community here in Shanghai. I just found out some friends of ours are moving back to the States in about two months. This is common - in fact, it's too common.
Transience is part of the deal when you accept an assignment in another country. People have different length contracts, they arrived at different times, are scheduled to leave at different times and sometimes get pulled home early (or left somewhere longer than planned). While everyone knows this intellectually, the emotional impact it has is harder to accept.
I don't think humans have evolved to deal well with transience. I'm certainly not an anthropologist, but when I look at how most people lived one hundred years ago (and how many people around the world still live), it appears that we have evolved to do best in stable communities. People need to be able to rely on others for help - they need to be able to trust others. Trust is built over time, and when a community is as transient as the Shanghai expat community, time to build trust is certainly lacking.
In addition, I recently read a report about stress suggesting that those who deal most successfully with highly stressful situations do so by reaching out to a support network for help. Living abroad is already stressful enough, but the inability to make lasting friendships adds a new dimension to that stress. But is there a silver lining to the transience cloud? Does the need to constantly make new friends and learn to quickly trust new people teach us (especially our kids) any valuable skills? Does it make us more inclined to help others we don't know very well - because we might be the ones needing help from strangers next week? Maybe. I don't know. I know that we are going to keep our new friends' dog for two months when they move back to the UK in June. We just met them in January. We're excited to have their dog, Jessica, stay with us, and maybe if they had a bigger network of longer-term friends they wouldn't have asked us to watch her. We wouldn't have the opportunity to help if they had family here. So maybe that's the lesson we really need to learn from living abroad: we're all most successful when we willingly help others, no matter how long the relationship lasts. But it still would be nice if our friends could stay...
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Self Discovery in Shanghai
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be like my Grandma. My Grandma is one of those people that everyone loves - not because she's the funniest person, or the "party" person, but because she makes everyone around her feel good about themselves - simply by listening. I cannot count the number of times I dropped by my Grandma and Grandpa's house unannounced (my Grandmother is in the enviable position of living within 1 mile of all four of her children and their families). Grandma would be doing something - crocheting, reading, working on her genealogy research. In hindsight, she was usually doing something that she wanted to be doing. But without fail, if I (or any of my other 8 cousins) showed up, Grandma would set aside whatever she was doing, sit down in her wine-colored recliner, fold her hands in her lap and listen. She listened to stories about boys, about school, about how awful my parents were. She listened to stories about where I wanted to go in life (who knew I'd end up in Shanghai?), what I wanted to be, my prof0und (or so I thought) thoughts on life. She would listen for hours - never getting up (come to think of it, she didn't even interrupt me to use the bathroom) until it was time to make the next meal for Grandpa. But even then, she listened as she worked.
In hindsight, I'm sure there were many days when the last thing she wanted to do was listen to her teenage granddaughter (or her 20-something granddaughter and now her 30-something granddaughter) pine away about the latest "problems" of her life. My grandmother grew up during the depression and knows first-hand what it means to have nothing. My tales of woe must have sounded rather pathetic to her, but she never let me think that. Rather, she listened to whatever I said as though it really were the funniest, saddest, most profound, craziest or smartest statement to ever be uttered. She still does this - for everyone. But I'm sure there are many days when she would rather do anything but listen to another word from all the people who stop by to talk to her.
As I have grown, I find myself realizing that what I want to emulate is my grandmother's selflessness. Admittedly, I have a long way to go. I just told my husband I needed "my own time" in order to have a chance to write this post - something my grandmother would probably never do. But I'm trying. And maybe by the time I'm my grandmother's age, I'll be a bit more like her in that respect. Upon reflection, though, I've realized that I am already exactly like my grandmother in another way.
In addition to being the world's best listener and living within 1 mile of her four children, my grandmother also lives within 1/8 mile of the place she was born. My Aunt D---actually lives there now, although in a different house. (The original house still exists, but was moved in the 70s so that the current one could be built for my great-grandparents. After they both passed, my Aunt wanted to return to the area from her home further south in Michigan, so she moved into Great-Grandma's house.) Anyhow, for her generation, my grandmother has led quite an adventurous life. She and my grandfather moved to Florida a couple of times, lived in Saginaw, Michigan, for many years, but eventually moved back to the northern Michigan location where my grandmother grew up. That is her home and where her heart is. Every winter, when my grandfather wants to go to Florida, my grandmother graciously agrees to go. But she is the one who is always pushing for an earlier return date to Michigan.
I was also raised in this same northern Michigan place until I was 18 and moved to Ann Arbor for college. As a child - especially as a teenager - all I wanted to do was leave. I wanted to live in far-away, "exotic" places. Well, here I am in Shanghai. It doesn't get much further than this from Michigan (although I don't know that Shanghai could be considered "exotic" anymore, given the huge number of westerners here). And now that I'm here, all I want to do is go home. Not just to Michigan. HOME. To the place where I grew up. I want to walk in the woods behind my parent's house and smell the pine forest. I want to hear the rustle of last year's leaves on the ground. I want to see the shifting patterns created by the dappled sunlight in the forest. I want to breathe clean air. I want to be away from the 1.3 billion people in China - who are EVERYWHERE. I don't want to hear any cars. I want to see a real blue sky day - not one of the Shanghai blue sky days where the morning sky teases you, only to give way to the smoggy, grayish-blue sky of the afternoon.
Now, you may think this is simply homesickness. And part of it may be. But I felt this same way when we lived in California. There, I grew tired of the blue skies (oh, silly me!) because they were pure blue every day. Then I wanted the white, fluffy clouds of northern Michigan summer afternoons. I wanted rain. I wanted green growth, not brown. I wanted humidity, not dry heat.
The bottom line is this: like it or not, I am like my grandmother. My roots are in the same place as hers, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I have tried to prove that I'm an adventurous, go-anywhere, "cool" person. But I don't have time for that now. My family demands so much of my time that when I have a chance to be me, I want to embrace who I am instead of trying to morph myself into the person I wish I could be. Because I will never be that person. So for now, I will do all I can to enjoy life in Shanghai, knowing that my heart will always lie in northern Michigan, on a farm that my great-grandfather logged and farmed. I am like my grandmother, and I'm proud of that.
Photos from my home:
In hindsight, I'm sure there were many days when the last thing she wanted to do was listen to her teenage granddaughter (or her 20-something granddaughter and now her 30-something granddaughter) pine away about the latest "problems" of her life. My grandmother grew up during the depression and knows first-hand what it means to have nothing. My tales of woe must have sounded rather pathetic to her, but she never let me think that. Rather, she listened to whatever I said as though it really were the funniest, saddest, most profound, craziest or smartest statement to ever be uttered. She still does this - for everyone. But I'm sure there are many days when she would rather do anything but listen to another word from all the people who stop by to talk to her.
As I have grown, I find myself realizing that what I want to emulate is my grandmother's selflessness. Admittedly, I have a long way to go. I just told my husband I needed "my own time" in order to have a chance to write this post - something my grandmother would probably never do. But I'm trying. And maybe by the time I'm my grandmother's age, I'll be a bit more like her in that respect. Upon reflection, though, I've realized that I am already exactly like my grandmother in another way.
In addition to being the world's best listener and living within 1 mile of her four children, my grandmother also lives within 1/8 mile of the place she was born. My Aunt D---actually lives there now, although in a different house. (The original house still exists, but was moved in the 70s so that the current one could be built for my great-grandparents. After they both passed, my Aunt wanted to return to the area from her home further south in Michigan, so she moved into Great-Grandma's house.) Anyhow, for her generation, my grandmother has led quite an adventurous life. She and my grandfather moved to Florida a couple of times, lived in Saginaw, Michigan, for many years, but eventually moved back to the northern Michigan location where my grandmother grew up. That is her home and where her heart is. Every winter, when my grandfather wants to go to Florida, my grandmother graciously agrees to go. But she is the one who is always pushing for an earlier return date to Michigan.
I was also raised in this same northern Michigan place until I was 18 and moved to Ann Arbor for college. As a child - especially as a teenager - all I wanted to do was leave. I wanted to live in far-away, "exotic" places. Well, here I am in Shanghai. It doesn't get much further than this from Michigan (although I don't know that Shanghai could be considered "exotic" anymore, given the huge number of westerners here). And now that I'm here, all I want to do is go home. Not just to Michigan. HOME. To the place where I grew up. I want to walk in the woods behind my parent's house and smell the pine forest. I want to hear the rustle of last year's leaves on the ground. I want to see the shifting patterns created by the dappled sunlight in the forest. I want to breathe clean air. I want to be away from the 1.3 billion people in China - who are EVERYWHERE. I don't want to hear any cars. I want to see a real blue sky day - not one of the Shanghai blue sky days where the morning sky teases you, only to give way to the smoggy, grayish-blue sky of the afternoon.
Now, you may think this is simply homesickness. And part of it may be. But I felt this same way when we lived in California. There, I grew tired of the blue skies (oh, silly me!) because they were pure blue every day. Then I wanted the white, fluffy clouds of northern Michigan summer afternoons. I wanted rain. I wanted green growth, not brown. I wanted humidity, not dry heat.
The bottom line is this: like it or not, I am like my grandmother. My roots are in the same place as hers, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I have tried to prove that I'm an adventurous, go-anywhere, "cool" person. But I don't have time for that now. My family demands so much of my time that when I have a chance to be me, I want to embrace who I am instead of trying to morph myself into the person I wish I could be. Because I will never be that person. So for now, I will do all I can to enjoy life in Shanghai, knowing that my heart will always lie in northern Michigan, on a farm that my great-grandfather logged and farmed. I am like my grandmother, and I'm proud of that.
Photos from my home:
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